Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #16 of Genesis, chapter 20. I am going to read Genesis 20:17-18:

So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children. For JEHOVAH had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.

In our last study, we discussed the word “healed” and we asked the question: “Where in the Bible (if anywhere) does it say in the Bible that God healed Satan?” This led us to Revelation, chapter 13 where we read that Satan’s “deadly wound was healed.” Spiritually, this identified with the loosing of Satan. It described the beast coming up out of the sea and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world marveled after him.

Then we saw how it relates to our chapter because God said to Abimelech, “thou art but a dead man,” because he had taken Abraham’s wife Sarah. He was a “dead man,” but then God healed Abimelech. We must ask the question: “Was Abimelech sick or did God strike him with an illness and then heal him?” No – when God said, “thou art but a dead man,” he did not physically die. It is true that God shut up the womb of Abimelech’s wife and maidservants, but why does it not simply say that God healed his wife and maidservants? But it says that God healed Abimelech, his wife and his maidservants and they bear children.

It is because of the spiritual level of understanding. It has to do with God healing Satan’s “deadly wound” by loosing him out of the bottomless pit, which identifies with death. We saw how this was all happening in conjunction with the loosing of Satan. We discussed that the healing of his wife and maidservants has to do with the spiritual children of Satan multiplying. Since God had given the corporate church over to Satan, it was as if Satan had an abundance of children. In our last study, we saw that in John 8 the Lord said to the Jews (representing the unsaved inhabitants of the corporate church of our day), in John 8:44:

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Christ said, “Ye are of your father the devil,” and then He spoke of Satan being the father of lies. When men speak lies regarding other religions or other gospels, they are children of Satan. It says in Galatians 4:22-26:

For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Here, we read of children being in bondage. The allegory of Hagar is the covenant of Sinai, which is through deceitfulness, which is Satan’s area of expertise. Many people believe they can be water baptized or that they can accept Christ or a thousand different “good works” that will make them children of God. However, they are children of the “bond woman” and, therefore, children of Satan that were conceived through their belief of a lie.

Or, we can go to Ephesians 2:2-3:

Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

They are children of the bond servant, children of disobedience and children of wrath. You know, children have someone that begat them. They have a father. Who would be the father of the children of disobedience? It is Satan who caused the initial act of disobedience. Who would be the father of the children of wrath? Satan. Who would be the father of the children born into bondage? It is Satan, again, and again. Spiritually, he is the father of the children that are unsaved. It says in Ephesians 5:6:

Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

Let no man deceive you. If you are deceived, then the wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience.

Of course, it is the opposite for God’s elect children. We are children of the obedient One, Christ: “By the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous.” We are not children of wrath any longer. We are children of peace, the peace that Christ has wrought for us when He bought us with His own blood or His own life.

We find this in many places, so let us go to Romans 9:7-8:

Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

Here, we see another reference to the unsaved, the “children of the flesh.” Yes – it is speaking of the physical descendants of Abraham, but God has something more in view in the spiritual realm. It has to do with those that walk “in the flesh.” They are natural-minded looking to the outward physical things, whether it be the circumcision of the Old Testament or the water baptism of the New Testament. They are children of Satan and not children of God.

It says in 2Peter 2:12-14:

But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

They are the children of disobedience or the children of wrath. They are cursed children. It is the children of Satan that are in view, spiritually, regarding Abimelech, his wife and his maidservants bearing children. They are bringing forth children in a time that spiritually identifies with the Great Tribulation. Satan and his kingdom greatly flourished and multiplied at that time because he was given reign over the entire corporate church with over two billion people. They became children of bondage. Remember that very interesting verse, the last verse of Deuteronomy 28, where God spoke of returning Israel to Egypt in ships and there no man would redeem them. It is the “Israel” that typifies the corporate church. God would return them to the house of bondage in spiritual captivity to sin and Satan, which God did at the end of the church age. All those that remained in the congregations were left in spiritual bondage. There was no more salvation throughout the entire 23-year Great Tribulation period. Christ (the “man”) did not redeem any of them.

It says in 1John 3:8-10:

He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.

Do you see the distinction God makes here? It said in verse 8, “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning.” They are of the devil or they have come forth of the devil, the father of lies. In this passage, God is dividing the human race into two groups of children: 1) the elect children of God, who would be obedient and faithful children, born of the Spirit of God, that can no longer sin in their souls because His seed remains in them; and 2) the children of the devil, including all those in the corporate churches as well as all the other unsaved inhabitants of the earth. They have all believed lies in their daily lives. They have believed the lie that it does not matter what they say, think or do and they do as they please. But they are not their own; they are God’s creation and they are married to the Law of God and subject to it, so as they live their lives in disregard of His Laws, and they are under the wrath of God. There are the lies of evolution, the “Big Bang” and all the lies of other religions and philosophies, and so forth. The world is “swimming in a sea of lies.” As a result, all the unsaved are children of the devil.

At the time of the end during the Great Tribulation, the world’s population exploded at the time that Satan was loosed by God to rule the corporate church as God gave up the churches. God had also given up mankind and they are committing greater and greater sins as sin multiplied across the earth, giving manifestation that they are children of Satan. Satan’s patriarchal rule over the unsaved inhabitants of the earth became far more evident at the time of the end, beginning with the Great Tribulation. Therefore, we see that God healed Abimelech, his wife and his maidservants and they bear children.

God healed Satan by loosing him and Satan’s children of disobedience multiplied exceedingly across the face of the earth.

That leads us to Genesis 20:18:

For JEHOVAH had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.

In verse 17 we were told that God healed Abimelech, his wife and his maidservants and they bear, but verse 18 is sort of reverting back to the time before God healed them. Therefore, since Abimelech is a picture of Satan at the time of the end during the Great Tribulation when he was loosed, the time prior to God healing him, his wife and maidservants to bear children would identify with the time when Satan was still bound. So, the figure is of a “closed up” womb, as God said, “For JEHOVAH had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech.” The “house” would identify with the kingdom of Satan, so God closing the wombs was “because of Sarah Abraham’s wife,” as God had a program to save Sarah, a picture of the elect. God did so twice. The first time was when Satan was bound at the cross and throughout the church age when God saved the firstfruits. Then God delivered Sarah a second time, pointing to His stretching forth His hand the second time to save the great multitude. And, yet, during the time of the Great Tribulation, there was a period of “binding” because it was God’s plan not to begin His salvation program until the 2,300 evening mornings had elapsed during the first part of the Great Tribulation, which began in 1988. So, I think God is referring to the idea that Satan was bound and his kingdom of unsaved that included the corporate churches did not become significant or evident until 1994 when the Latter Rain began to fall outside the churches; that is when it became evident that God was not using the corporate church in this outpouring. It is a difficult verse to understand and to explain, but I think it must be related to that.

We want to discuss one last thing before we move on to Genesis, chapter 21, and that is to consider when it was that Sarah conceived. Back in Genesis, chapter 17 and chapter 18, God told Abraham and Sarah that she would conceive a child (Isaac) at the set time in the next year. A listener that follows our studies very closely pointed out that she thought Sarah’s conception occurred after she was returned to Abraham from Abimelech’s house, because of what it says in Genesis 21:1-2:

And JEHOVAH visited Sarah as he had said, and JEHOVAH did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.

This makes it sound as if the conception happened after the events of Genesis 20. After thinking about this and praying for wisdom and looking into it more closely, I think I agree. I think it was incorrect to say that Sarah had conceived a short time after Sodom was destroyed and then went into Abimelech’s household already with a child in developing in her womb. I think the Bible does allow time for all the events of chapter 20 to occur, and then Sarah was returned and conceived and bear Isaac in the set time.

Let me give an example we can understand. Let us say it was September, as we do not know the actual month, but let us say that God came to Abraham and Sarah in September and told them, “You will have a child at the set time in the next year.” Literally, it says “in another year,” but since Abraham was 99 and his child would be born when he was 100, we can understand it to mean the “next year,” so the translator properly translated it. So, again, let us say that in September God tells them they will have a child at the set time in the next year. Then the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah took place and it was such an awful destruction, so Abraham probably thought that his location was no place to raise a child, so he packed up and moved to Gerar. We are not sure how long it would take him to move his family, servants and belongings and to travel there, but it may have been two or three weeks. When they get there, Sarah was taken into the house of Abimelech. It would have been for at least some period of time for God to have shut up the wombs of Abimelech’s household. So, Sarah was taken in late September and she stayed there until early in January, which would be 2 or 2 ½ months, and then God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him that he was “but a dead man.” Sarah was immediately released. And we know they stayed in the area because in chapter 21 Abimelech was back in view again, so Abraham and Sarah did not travel anywhere. So, Sarah conceived right after being returned to Abraham and nine months from early January would be in September, which would agree with Isaac being born at the set time of the next year. I think this is a better chain of events, and we can see how all this seems to fit with the Bible.

I think we have covered all we can cover in chapter 20, so in our next Bible study we are going to move on to Genesis, chapter 21.